Music not lucrative anymore — Kumi Guitar

Highlife artiste Kumi Guitar has reinforced comments by a number of his colleagues that the music industry is not lucrative anymore and only a few musicians are benefitting from it.

According to Kumi Guitar, a lot of musicians are suffering and not getting anything from music but fail to say the truth.

“I have been in the industry for a while and I know what I am talking about. Unless you have monster hits, no event organiser wants to use you. At Christmas, you will see the same artistes playing at all the events.

“What about the other artistes like myself who are good but do not have monsters hits, how do we survive?” he said in an interview with Graphic Showbiz.

The Betweener singer said unless an artiste had an investor or a strong management team behind him or her, it was difficult to make it in Ghana.

“The likes of Sarkodie, Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy have serious investors pushing them. Music is so difficult in Ghana if you do not have any backing.

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“You literally have to reinvest the little money you get from a hit song you have. If not for the love I had for the job and the fans, I would have probably quit music by now,” he stated.

Kumi Guitar also weighed in on the poor royalties system in Ghana, saying “if radio and TV stations among others pay royalties for playing our music, some of us will be better off. GHAMRO could do well by chasing after our monies for us,” he said.

Talking about streaming and downloads which some musicians seem to make money from, Kumi Guitar said it took a musician who had a lot of subscribers to make some money.

“How many musicians make money from streaming and downloads? The musicians themselves are putting out their music for downloads so where are they making the money from? They will not tell the truth but it is just a few who have a lot of hit songs who are benefitting from streaming,” he explained.

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Moving forward, Kuami Guitar said it was about time musicians came together to fight for a common goal.

“We need to come together and fight for our rights, we need to also support one another as the Nigerians do. Nigerians will never choose Ghanaian songs over theirs but here, we rather enjoy the Nigerian songs more than ours,” he indicated.